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Ordinarily, the National Football League's Coach of the Year award follows a straightforward script. It commonly acts as a form of apology. Sorry we underestimated your team in our pre-campaign predictions.

Theoretically, it's a direct line: the skipper who orchestrated the most dramatic improvement wins the award. In reality, it sparks an yearly argument about preseason outlooks and whether we're actually honoring excellent leadership or just the greatest shock.

Yet the current competition is distinctly unique. The pool of candidates is exceptionally talented. It has been the season of turnarounds. The league has been messy, with recent division champions falling away and recent underperformers rising together. Under an typical year, Sean Payton guiding the his team to the summit of the AFC would make him the stone-cold favorite. But in this chaotic and entertaining season, he's up against several other exceptional candidates.

This is how the hypothetical vote ought to look.

5) Ben Johnson, His Team, 11-5

Coach of the Year voters love signal-callers. They always have. A certain coach in 2017. Another in 2020. Brian Daboll in 2022. If you transform a quarterback, you're well on your way home.

The Bears' head coach didn't merely fixed his young quarterback; he's unleashed him. In the right ecosystem, the QB has been afforded the chance to display his special ability. From midseason onward, the Chicago offense sit at number four in offensive Expected Points Added per play. That's not a hot streak – it's sustained excellence. With Johnson, the quarterback has become increasingly confident, far less reckless, and has willingly submitted to the system rather than going rogue. It is an offense constructed entirely in Johnson's vision: a physical run game, a steady helping of play-action and a innovative aerial game that springs wide-open targets everywhere. Williams has taken advantage. And when openings weren't available, he's been able to conjure magic from broken plays.

The coach arrived to Chicago with a defined offensive blueprint. Almost each decision – rebuilding the trenches, featuring the tight ends, turning the QB into a rhythm thrower – has succeeded. This is rare for a rookie head coach. And it's even more uncommon yet for a leader who walked into the organization with the kind of hype Johnson did. For two straight cycles, he was the most sought-after candidate on the coaching carousel. But when it comes to hiring a leader, there are zero guarantees. Remarkably, he has met the hype – and even exceeded them. He's proven not just to be a offensive wizard but the type of leader that can inject new life into an franchise.

In a ordinary season, he would be the runaway favorite. Yet this isn't a normal season!

The area where Johnson's case comes slightly into trouble is on defense. The Chicago defense presently rank 25th in defensive success rate. They are relying on turnovers, and turnovers are notoriously inconsistent. Defensive minds can stress ball disruption, but no one can ensure it. He is on the ballot because the offense is real. He's not higher because variance is doing too much of the defense's work. With a few bounces of the ball, the Bears would be two wins worse off. It's been an exceptional transformation, and the foundation is in place for sustained success. However Johnson falls short in this ranking.

4) The Jacksonville Jaguars Coach, Jacksonville Jaguars, 12-4

The Jaguars' coach is in a similar spot to his counterpart. He's another rookie leader who has masterminded a dramatic turnaround. Over the crucial final weeks of the year, he has Trevor Lawrence playing the best all-around ball of his professional life. And he's also overseen the remaking of a defensive unit that now sits at number five in the NFL in Expected Points Added per play.

Even more impressively, Coen has mastered the off-field stuff, which was not a guarantee after his initial public introduction and some of his offseason moves.

Coen took over Jacksonville with an exceptionally raw staff. In contrast to Johnson, who packed themselves with the ideal coaching mix of new ideas and veteran savvy, he bet on first-timers. Starting with the head coach on down to coordinators to position coaches, the Jags are stocked with rookies. That type of approach is intriguing in theory, but frequently fails in reality – as past failures are a warning – because everybody is learning a their job in real-time. Yet Coen has pulled everyone and everything into sync.

After an early hot beginning, there was a possibility that the campaign would go off the track. A mid-year collapse caused the Jags wobbling again. That's usually when coaches panic and change too much. He did not. Instead, he streamlined things. Jacksonville stopped chasing explosive answers and started hunting sustainable ones. Coen refocused the offense around key players and the running game, and encouraged Lawrence to use his mobility more often.

The results are clear. The Jaguars have won seven games consecutively and will be the AFC's No 3 seed. He gets the slightest deduction in the standings because he inherited a skilled team, but he has proven he can maximize that talent.

3) The Seattle Seahawks Coach, His Team, Their Record

Every Strong of the Year case has a defining moment. For the Seahawks coach, it was his quarterback choice.

Moving on from a incumbent, signing a different quarterback and pairing him with an innovative play-caller might have ended the season in October. Instead, it made it. Through the mid point of the season, the acquisition was an MVP front-runner. He has regressed since that time, dropping to 23rd in EPA per dropback over the latter part of the season, placing him just a single spot ahead of other QBs.

Still